"The Story of the Cajuns," a documentary film in which a local young lady plays the role of Evangeline, will be shown Saturday at the Opelousas Public Library.

The hour-long film will be part of this month's meeting of the Imperial St. Landry Genealogy and Historical Society. It meets at 10 a.m. in the library located at 212 E. Grolee St. The meeting is free and open to the public.

James Douget, president of the St. Landry Preservationist Society, will be on hand to present the feature.

His daughter, Erin, played the role of Evangeline, the tragic but tough heroine of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's epic poem of the same name that first brought the plight of the Acadian people to a larger audience in 1847.

"They did filming in Arnaudville, Port Barre — all along the bayou," Douget said. "She really enjoyed it because she got to miss school. It was a no-brainer for her."

Although Erin helps bring the story to life, her role is just a small element of the film that features interviews with people throughout the region.

"It is a nicely done film. It gives a good recap of the entire Cajun experience," Douget said.

In the film, Cajuns from all walks of life — from cattlemen and shrimpers, to scholars and artists — tell the tales of their ancestors, to paint a panorama of Acadian history.

The documentary is the work of filmmaker Brenda Jepson, a native of Maine. She said the film has its roots in her intrigue about why she grew up surrounded by Thibodeauxs, Robichauds and other surnames so closely tied to Cajun culture.

As she would learn, Maine had been one of the earliest French settlements in the New World.

"This is the first place the Acadians settled in 1604," Jepson said. "They were here before Jamestown, before the Pilgrims. They were master farmers and builders hand-picked to help settle North America."

Jepson said she learned about the early settlements while working on a previous film, "The Story of the Acadians," with her husband, Alan Jepson.

But these early settlers found themselves pawns in a great power struggle between France and England, two superpowers of their day.

The British won that struggle and forcefully removed the Acadians from Nova Scotia in the mid-1700s. Many eventually found themselves a new home in Louisiana.

Jepson said this is where "The Story of the Cajuns" picks up.

"What happened after the expulsion?" she asked. "We came down (to Louisiana) without any preconceived notions and just listened to people telling their stories. I'm not a Cajun, so it was the only way I could have made this film."

She said each interviewee in the film takes up a part of the Cajun story where the last interviewee left off, completing the tale from the expulsion to the eventual settling in Louisiana.

Although Jepson said she also filmed in France, Canada and Maine, where a number of the Acadian diaspora were relocated, she said the film is for and by the people of Louisiana.

"We just helped them tell their story," she said.

Jepson said the stories in the film were often so moving that she would find herself crying in the editing room.

"Knowing that there was a happy ending was the only thing that kept me going," she said.

Douget said the Jepsons, who took seven years making this film, are working on a second volume of the story, That is supposed to come out in October.